Kyoto, Japan

I had a great time visiting Kyoto. I got to see many friends and pursue my old haunts from back when I studied abroad in the city. Almost three years has passed since then but not much has changed.

On the first night there I met up with an AKP friend, Akane, who is currently working in Osaka. We went out for pasta and parfaits at my favorite parfait place in town -- Karafuneya. This is a place that has a choice of over 300 types of parfaits. I defaulted to my favorite, which is the Japanese style parfait complete with rice balls, green tea ice cream, and red bean. So good.

Later in the week we finally got to go get more parfaits at the famous green tea place in Gion called Tsujiri. Usually people are lined up down the street just to get a seat at Tsujiri, but maybe because we went in the middle of the day on a weekday, we lucked out and were shown to a table straight away. The parfait was delicious, but not really worth all the hype, I think. 

Duh and of course we did puri kura! I love Japanese photo booths even though the majority of the people using the machines were high/ middle school-aged girls...

I also finally got to take a trip to Nara, south of Kyoto. Nara is famous for the deer that wander freely around the park and temple grounds. We went to Todai-ji, perhaps the most famous temple in the area. It was gorgeous and inside was a giant Buddha. The place was infested with school children. As we walked towards the temple we were approached by several deer looking for senbei crackers, which you can buy at stands along the road. The deer can be pretty demanding to get at their senbei, and so the school kids kept buying the crackers and throwing them at the deer and then running away. The deer swarmed around them like smelly ravenous beasts. 

Todai-ji

I think autumn was the perfect season to go to Kyoto. The leaves were just starting to change color and the weather was perfect. it was in the 70s every day, quite warm, and then temps dropped at night . A typhoon blew through the region the day before I got there, so I avoided all the humid, hot, rainy weather.

I celebrated Halloween in Kyoto with Mike, who moved on to Kyoto after a brief stay in Seoul. We met at the hostel I stayed with in Seoul, Ed House, and decided to meet up again in Japan. Such a good idea. Mainly we perused the streets taking pictures with all the people in costumes.

My last full day in Kyoto was on Friday and I met up with my host mom from my study abroad days. She took me out for udon followed by a parfait at this very traditional parfait place in Gion. I wish I took pictures because it was gorgeous. We walked in and removed our shoes right away. We were led to a large room with several tables and were seated on the floor. The room was decorated in the traditional style and had a lot of wood and sliding paper doors. To one side was a wall of windows and outside, a small and peaceful garden. It was so nice to see my host mom again and just chat about everything that had happened since I'd seen her last (nearly two years ago!). It was also nice to realize I could still understand Japanese and speak enough to communicate.

Seoul 1 - Cultural

While in Seoul we had some cultural experiences. We walked around a neighborhood full of houses with traditional Korean architecture. We also went to a palace and for a walk down the Cheonggyecheon River. 

Hwasun Beach and Sanbangsan Temple (화순금모래해변 & 산방산)

This past Thursday was a prime example of things not always going exactly how you think they're going to go, but still working out for the best. We went to Hwasun beach thinking that we'd kayak, but quickly learned that the weather was too windy and the water too rough to paddle out on the sea. Instead Anna suggested we take a walk along the closest Olle trail, and so we found ourselves trudging along the beach, scrambling over rocks, climbing countless stairs, and pulling ourselves up a steep gradient using a rope.

Once we reached the start of what looked like an actual trail through the woods, we encountered a Korean man and his family. In English the man told us, "You can't go that way. There's a big spider on the path." And we stood there thinking, this must be one massive spider to turn away a big Korean guy and his family. Although I was wary, Anna was undeterred. The two of us scouted a little father into the brush, leaving Oli and Reesha behind. We quickly came across the spider, which was brightly colored and hanging out on a web crossing the footpath, so Anna took a stick and moved the spider out of the way. No big deal. 

I've noticed that many of the Korean people I meet while hiking Ole trails are incredibly well outfitted with all the right brightly colored hiking gear, but when it comes to getting their hands dirty they're fairly inexperienced with the outdoors. 

Anna and I reached a viewing platform at the top of the cliff, but since Reesha and Oli didn't follow us, we had to turn around and go back the way we came, making a detour around the cliff, we reconnected with the olle trail on the other side and continued our hike through a rolling field and then along the coastline.

From our perch on another seaside cliff, we looked out and saw gorgeous hidden beaches lining the coastline.

Some of the cove beaches were closed to the public, but we found one that we could walk onto. Nobody kicked us off at any rate... We sunbathed and swam for a couple hours. The sea was so warm and the rocks on either side of us kept away the worst of the wind and waves. 

We moved on, walking along the beach, continuing towards distant Sanbangsan. The beach was riddled with interesting rock formations and caves. The rocks looked almost like plastic, the were so odd. It was like lava flow trapped in time. 

Apparently at some point we had separated from the olle trail, which was above us, and we were below on the beach. We could see stairs leading up to a viewing platform, but had to get up to them somehow. I know it's terrible, but we ended up scrambling up a giant sand dune in order to reconnect to the trail. After our haphazard ascent, we reached a viewing platform where we could look out on the beach we had just crossed, and we could even see our original starting point, Hwasun Beach (next to the industrial park in the photo below).

 

The olle trail eventually led us to the base of Sanbangsan, which is a huge, very steep oreum that is visible even from my room at NLCS Jeju. Since the sides are so steep, it's impossible to climb to the top of this oreum without ropes and equipment, but there is a Buddhist temple set into the south side with stairs leading someways up the mountain and ending in a grotto.

As soon as we stepped foot onto the temple grounds, we were suddenly assaulted by a group of Korean men, who were keen to show us around. One in particular was especially enthusiastic, waving his arms around pointing at things and speaking to us very loudly in Korean. We were a bit annoyed by this and managed to escape his attention eventually. We climbed up many stairs...

And more stairs...

Forever stairs...

Beautiful photo by Row of the inside of the temple

...Until we reached the very top of the temple, which was basically a big Buddah set into a cave in the side of the mountain. In fact, I learned recently that Sanbangsan means Mountain Room Mountain, named for the grotto room called Sanbanggul.

At the top, we came across the Very Enthusiastic Korean Man once more, and he convinced Oli to go up to the Buddah and pray. It was a hot day, so we took a rest on the benches near the grotto and were approached by yet another Korean man with a ponytail. So excited to see foreigners, he immediately dialed up his wife, a Korean teacher, and handed his cellphone over to me. I chatted with his wife on the phone for several minutes, and she told me about her husband being in Jeju on vacation while she was back at their home on the mainland.

On our way back down the mountain we quickly made our way past Enthusiastic Korean Man, and encountered a new person: Short Korean Man, who was so impressed by Anna's height that he struck up a mainly Korean conversation with her. The two of them took a picture together and we moved on.

At the ticket booth at the base of the mountain we ran into the other half of our group, who had left later in the day after having a lie-in. They had just arrived by taxi and hadn't yet seen the temple, so we made plans to meet up again in an hour, and we went for a quick lunch as the other group climbed the many stairs.

Then, WHO DID WE SEE AT LUNCH???? Why it was Very Enthusiastic Korean Man and his friends. As soon as we walked into the restaurant they called out to us loudly in old man Korean, with a lot of deep loud voices and saliva flying everywhere. They had already had a bit to drink. By this point we accepted that this was our fate -- too many chance encounters to call it anything else -- and sat down at the table next to them.

They poured us drinks and we toasted many times and ate seafood pajeon (Korean chive pancakes). Just as they were about to leave, Ponytail Korean man saw us at the restaurant and came in. He told the other men about our previous encounter up on mountain near the temple, and explained to them about me chatting to his wife on the cellphone. Of course then we had to toast to THAT too. But we were all laughing and having a good time, even though I speak 10 words of Korean and they spoke even less English.

After lunch we met up with the other half of our group, who had finished their hike up to the temple. We walked along the beach, and sat briefly to appreciate the view of Sanbangsan from afar:

After a beer at the cafe, You and I, we called it a day and headed back to NLCS, recounting our unexpected encounters and discoveries along the way. 

[Some photos courtesy of Row, Anna, and Reesha]